Compare and contrast essay

Thestory of an hour and the yellow wallpaper

Introduction

This is a contrast and compare essay of the two short stories story of an hour and the yellow wallpaper. This paper makes a comparison of the three literary devices that is symbolism, imagery, and the narrator.

Symbolism

literary devices use symbols and ideas to signify qualities and ideas. It gives a more profound meaning other than the one in literal sense. It shows an object that represents another, giving a deeper and more significant meaning.

Imagery

is a literary device use descriptive language to provide the reader with the imagination of the literature world and also adds symbolism; it majorly draws from the five senses, including sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch. Lastly, the narrator is the person telling a story, and majorly determines the story’s point of view in fiction.

Symbolism

The narrator of the Yellow wallpaper had the sense that she had to interpret the wallpaper. The wallpaper symbolizes something that affects her directly. The wallpaper, therefore, has symbolism throughout the story. Initially, the wallpaper is not attractive since it is unclean yellow, ripped, and soiled. Worse still, the wallpaper has a formless pattern that attracts the narrator to try and understand how it is organized. After looking at the wallpaper for so long, she sees a sub-pattern with a ghost just behind the main pattern, but this was only visible in light. As she focuses on the strange pattern, the narrator notices a desperate woman whose stopping and crawling trying to escape from the main pattern, and this resembled the cage bars. The narrator sees the cage as a group of women heads, all strangled as they tried to escape. The wallpaper shows a family structure, tradition, and medicine where the narrator is trapped. The wallpaper is humble and domestic and uses this nightmare, wallpaper, as a symbol of domestic life where many women are trapped. Symbolism comes out well in the story of an hour. The heart trouble afflicting Louise is physical and symbolic. It represents Louise’s uncertainty about lack of happiness and manages due to lack of freedom. Louise has heart trouble, which is the first thing she learned about her, and this is what announces Brently’s death threatening. With her weak heart, she could not take such news well. Louise sees death as freedom, and her heart pumps blood faster. After her death, it could have been seen as if she had heart disease, and this could have been true since the shock of seeing Brently would kill her. Ironically, the doctor concludes that she dies of joy while it could be she dies due to lack of it. Louise may have died due to a broken heart due to the loss of her independence. The open window is symbolic, as well. It symbolizes the freedom that awaits Louise after the death of her husband. Louise sees the blue sky from the window with treetops and fluffy clouds (Chopin 253). From the window, she hears birds and people sing, and she also smells a rainstorm. All this symbolizes the joy of a new life. When she contemplates the sky, she gets elated. She fully gets excited and feels as if the window gives her life. This open window enables a clear view at a distance. This symbolizes a bright future with no obstacles. It is no coincidence that once she moves away from the window, she loses her freedom.

Imagery

Imagery literature device is brought out clearly in both stories to provoke senses and thoughts to enable the reader to have imagination of what is being perceived to be occurring. The use of diction makes the reader see what Mrs. Mallard sees when looking out of the window as quoted, “I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery.” ( Chopin 3). The author brings out spring outside the window, and the day is beautiful with a sweet smell that delays the rain. She also describes a person singing a song, and Mrs. Mallard cannot hear clearly, but it is refreshing. After being informed of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard would see the beauty outside through the window. The reader gets a visual image when Louise is looking out through the window as well as the realization of her happiness with the death of her husband. The realization of her freedom does not come immediately since, at first, she feels confused. Instead of being happy, she is sorrowful. At the very same time, her calm face sees the sky with blue patched, and she becomes keen and bright, which is a sign of happiness. This shows that she has conflicting emotions. The reader can see these emotions as the author has elegantly used imagery. The Yellow wallpaper also uses imagery to give readers a clear picture of the story’s happenings. The author describes the story giving details that helps the reader have the picture in their mind. The narrator has prescribed the bed rest due to what is thought to be hysteria, but in reality, it is most probably postpartum depression. She is not allowed to have physical stimulation, and only the details of her environment are observed. At the start of the story, it is described as “Flamboyant and the color revolting” (Gilman 793). Through this, the narrator is able describe the home where the family has a vacation in minute detail. How the narrator describes the wallpaper makes the reader see. The narrator describes the wallpaper to make them understand that the woman is well educated and, therefore, keen on details. The wallpaper evokes an emotional response to the woman, which is seen in her statement, “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to irritate and provoke study constantly… ” (Gilman 793).

Narrator

The narrator in The Yellow Paper is the first person. The narrator is also a paradox. The narrator starts to lose touch with the world and gets to understand the inner reality of life. The internal split is essential to understand the nature of her suffering. At the point, she is faced with objects, relationships, and situations that look natural and innocent, but in reality, it is oppressive. In the plot of the story, the narrator attempts to avoid accepting the extent to which her situation affects who she is. The narrator is seen to be imaginative, and at a point, she remembers when she was terrified by her imaginary nighttime in her childhood (Gilman 259). In the story of an hour, the narrator is a limited synonymous third person. The narrator stands outside the characters and events described. The limited third person is seen in the story where we are given the feelings and thoughts of Louise; all the other characters are described externally. Only bare facts are presented of the things that affect Louse, such as the death of her husband. The narrator says, “And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!” the narrator reports how Louise kept whispering to herself, “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin 25). The limitations of the limited third party are apparent in the above quote. As readers, we see direct into Louise’s mind with the exclamation marks denoting that she is hard on herself to become free. The narrator of this story is seen to be confined into a single character and, therefore, unable to give much information about other characters and other things.

References

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The yellow wallpaper. Project Gutenberg, 1999.

Chopin, Kate. The story of an hour. Jimcin Recordings, 1981.